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brendan and the secret of kells feature from Ireland.

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brendan and the secret of kells feature from Ireland.

hi. guys. anyone know more about this project by Kilkenny, Ireland based Cartoon Saloon? i.e. what kind of animation it is etc?
i just saw a bit of it today and i find it quite fascinating. Is it Flash?

view here

i havent had much time but a little digging says they are budgeted around $6.5million which would make it way high for Flash :)

I think they're going with hand drawn animation. They've been working on this for a long time now, and I'm not even sure if they're fully funded yet, but they're one of the best Irish studios, and it will be interesting to see how they get on. They've been working a lot with flash recently, but all their early stuff was hand-drawn, and I would imagine that's how they would want to complete the film.

the stills on there site are very nice.

It has a style similar to Samurai Jack.
It's good to see that more small studios are making 2D features.
With the competition 3D brings, we might see some really beautiful and daring 2D movies in the next few decades.

It doesn't look like Flash to me. (shrug)

oh well. they had some info about some new flash arists joining up. maybe its for Skunk Fu.
i think these guys are super talented and i love what they are doing with Kells. its beautiful to look at.

Info about Brendan and the secret of Kells

Did any one see the film yet? What are your thoughts ?

I worked on this film, and I'd like to bring a bit of trivia to market, along with a bit of information about the production system used :-)

"Brendan and the secret of Kells" official website
http://www.thesecretofkells.com/

The film was produced in 7 studios around Europe and Brazil with a not trivial work split approximately like this:

Pre production and Story up to Layout was done in Kilkenny-Ireland (Cartoon Saloon)
Backgrounds: Kilkenny-Ireland and Angoulême-France (Blue Spirit)
Animation: Kilkenny, Brussels-Belgium(Walking the Dog), Sao Paolo-Brazil(Lightstar Studios) and Kecskemet-Hungary(Kecskemet Film)
Cleanup: Sao Paolo and Kecskemet
Ink & Paint: Liege-Belgium(Digital Graphics)
Compositing: Brussels and Angoulême
3D: Brussels
Final editing: Paris-France

All being directed and edited (except for final editing) from Kilkenny, the main base of the director Tomm Moore (His blog: http://theblogofkells.blogspot.com/, and the teaser for the next film from Tomm and Cartoon Saloon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdCabgJQpbA)

The film was drawn on paper, with a few sequences in Flash and 3D integrated with 2D. A few scenes incorporated flash elements.

Software:
Photoshop for Layouts and BG's
Good old pencils and paper for animation and cleanup
Linetest in Animo
Ink and paint in proprietary software (SoftAnim) in Digital Graphics (http://www.digitalgraphics.be)
3D: 3DSMax by "Walking The Dog" (http://www.walkingthedog.be)
Composite: Combustion, Shake and SoftAnim (Digital Graphics)
Misc: A little bit of flash
Editing: 4 Avid system automatically kept up to date with latest footage
Production system: HoBSoft (http://www.hobsoft.net)

Here is an early clip of video featuring some early artwork, and some clips from the studio in Brussels, it is in French, but interesting even if you do not understand.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5e...lls_shortfilms

Here is an article more or less about the same
http://www.cinergie.be/article.php?a...display&id=579

The final clean-up scan was done in very high resolution to keep the soul of the pencil in the film, no vectorization here.

The film was produced with the workflow based HoBSoft production system incorporating To-Do-Lists, Tracking, Reporting, Automation, Rolling conformed full resolution master and 4 Avid stations (in different studios) always up to date with the latest footage.

As a last tid-bit of info I would like to add that the production Manager Camille Leganza(Now DreamWorks Redwood), who at the time was living in Turkey did about 50/50 of her time at home and in Kilkenny, however... once production had finished in Ireland (Except for direction and editing), (so only 6 studios producing), Camille worked almost 100% from home in Turkey. Imagine keeping the reins on 6 studios "From the comfort of your own home".

Thoughts on this way of producing are also welcome :-)

HC

HoBSoft Automated animation workflow for feature and tv-series

wow

looking forwards to seeing the this, it sounds like a massive project !

Massive project

Hi purplegoose

Well in "Brendan and the secret of Kells" was a quite normal 2D paper production, but in effect the project was special in the number of producing studios involved.

In Europe productions are quite often co-productions using sub contractors for some work. This way of producing is almost always because of economic reasons. Many productions are partly financed by regional development councils that, as a return for the money or tax-shelter, demands a portion of the work to be placed in the same region.

It is almost commonly recognized that you may loose as much as 30% of the image budget because of delays, misunderstandings and so forth when producing in more than one studio.
Using and "Integrated Production System" supplier such as HoBSoft will significantly lower those losses, and when you pass the limit of 3 studios you definitely need something like this to keep track of the production. Here is an example of the kind of systems we supply as part of our services.

We are currently working on Chico and Rita producing in 6 studios from Brazil to Latvia, all delivering footage to the main studio in Barcelona through HoBSoft.
Here is a link to another discussion about this production.

I bought my DVD from hmv.com (Get the Blu-Ray instead, then you can really see the details). Consider that, if the film does not get to a theater near you anytime soon.

HoBSoft Automated animation workflow for feature and tv-series

my gosh !

I'm so interested in studio work-flow's and understanding the amount of huge amount of organization that takes place every day in production.
I need the experience of working in studio for discipline and to grasp how the small details all come together to form the overall process!

About the production, you said you didn't use Vectors but instead wanted to preserve the pencil lines, for this style of animation i think that was a great idea it looks magical, however was there any other reasons you didn't use a CG lines... Flash/ToonBoom ect ?

btw thanks for the services pdf the mind boggles with the amount of work that goes into a feature production !

my gosh !

Hi purplegoose

Sorry for not answering quickly

No, to my knowledge there were no other reasons not to choose vectorized drawings.

I am not an artist my self, but I have heard that if you opt paperless you should choose your tool very carefully as some of them apparently modifies the line (quite a bit) in the vectorization process. This means that the vectorized line does not look like the one you drew. Other tools are very good in this matter though.
From what I have read Flash and Illustrator modifies the lines and Plastic animation Paper and TVP are good. As far as I know also ToonBoom's freehand tools are good.
All of this is for you to test your self. In the end it is your tool and what you do with it that matters.

HC

HoBSoft Automated animation workflow for feature and tv-series